


Becoming

by marguerite_26



Series: my mating games ficlets and drabbles [10]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Android Derek, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-23
Updated: 2014-05-23
Packaged: 2018-01-26 06:41:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1678505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marguerite_26/pseuds/marguerite_26
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Good morning, Stiles," Derek said. It had taken weeks to get Derek's voice module to play the greeting with <i>almost</i> the perfect intonation.</p>
<p>"Morning, big guy." Stiles smiled, trying to ignore the ache in his chest that tainted every conversation he had with the android. It was hard to enjoy Derek's friendliness when Stiles understood every line of code that created the mimicked humanity.</p>
<p>Still, Derek's constant, comforting presence was pathetically the best thing in Stiles' life at the moment. He was a beautifully built android, stunning to look at, but Stiles always found it hard to meet those soulless eyes and not wish for something impossible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Becoming

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [melusinahp](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Melusinahp), [faithwood](http://archiveofourown.org/users/faithwood) and [OnTheTurningAway](http://archiveofourown.org/users/OnTheTurningAway) for the beta during the various stages of this.
> 
> The original version (750 words) was my submission of Mating Games, week 1 challenge: Fairy Tales.  
> Thanks for the votes. <3

Once upon a time there was an idiot who worked with androids and played with stuff he did not understand…

 

Dr. Deucalion was a dirty old man; Stiles learned that in his first week. 

The work at Cyberlabs was interesting enough that Stiles managed to ignore the skeeviness of his boss by avoiding him at all costs. Luckily, no one complained when he clocked most of his hours after the lab had emptied. 

This lazy Sunday morning, it was just him and the comforting hum of the test androids in stasis. He was working on the Wolf Series again -- a bit of a pet project of Deucalion's. Stiles looked over at the set of dark-haired, light-eyed androids and tried not to think about just how much time Deucalion spent perfecting every detail of Talia's jawline, or the exact slope of Derek's nose, or the sharpness of Laura's cheekbones. 

Cyberlabs prided itself on the most realistic of the androids on the market, and the Wolf Series, with their fierce good-looks and simulated emotional responses, were a step beyond anything the world had yet seen in artificial intelligence. 

Deucalion's tagline for the series said it all: not closer to human, but _beyond_ human.

They were even built with an emotion-triggered eye-color change. It still mystified Stiles how such an algorithm was even possible in an android with simulated emotions. 

“Actually...” Stiles said, tapping his lip in contemplation. He eyed Deucalion’s always pristine work space. There was never a coffee ring or a loose paper to be seen. Every note, every test result was tucked away in his locked drawers.

Now that he thought about it, there wasn’t a single program of Deucalion’s on the Wolf Series that Stiles had ever code-reviewed. With a dangerous mixture of recklessness and curiosity, Stiles made his way to his boss’s file cabinet.

“Just the eye thing,” he told himself. “I need to know _how_ the SOB managed that.”

The drawers were locked, but Stiles had tweaked his access card months ago to become a master key after he discovered that Kira hid chocolate in her desk. He grinned to himself as he swiped and the panel light turned from red to green.

The cabinet drawer was well organized enough; it only took a moment to find what he was looking for. He grabbed the file labeled _Wolf Pack_ and began to read.

"What the hell?" Stiles stared at the pages, heartbeat rising. 

Chunks of the file weren't even in English, or any other language Stiles recognized. The syntax of the code was complex, more so than anything Stiles had ever seen. If Stiles didn't know any better, he'd think the words themselves were _ancient_. His skin tingled as he whispered some of the lines of code out loud. 

Whatever Deucalion was doing, it was worlds beyond what he was sharing at team meetings.

"Derek, _on_ ," Stiles said.

Across the room, Derek whizzed to life, his eyes flashing blue. 

"Good morning, Stiles," Derek said. It had taken weeks to get Derek's voice module to play the greeting with _almost_ the perfect intonation.

"Morning, big guy." Stiles smiled, trying to ignore the ache in his chest that tainted every conversation he had with the android. It was hard to enjoy Derek's friendliness when Stiles understood every line of code that created the mimicked humanity.

Still, Derek's constant, comforting presence was pathetically the best thing in Stiles' life at the moment. He was a beautifully built android, stunning to look at, but Stiles always found it hard to meet those soulless eyes and not wish for something impossible.

He stroked Derek's cold cheek and the android's blank expression didn't waver.

Stiles sighed. "Let's figure out what Deucalion's been up to, alright?"

The scrap of paper at the front of the file kept drawing his attention. It wasn't like the dozens of other notes and print outs; instead it was yellowed with age, wrinkled from being handled too much. The hand-written code, like much of the file, wasn't in English. If Stiles had to guess, he might say Latin. Not that computer code in _Latin_ made any sense. 

From the notes, a large portion of Deucalion's time seemed focused around those few dozen lines. The test results, however, were all marked 'unsatisfactory.'

"Maybe I can get this upgrade working," he told Derek, who listened as silently as he was programmed to. "These fiddly bits of code were never Deucalion's forte." 

Stiles moved to stand behind Derek. Running his hands along Derek's nape, he found the panel release and popped it open. Reviewing the strange code one last time, Stiles nodded to himself, already manipulating the structure of the syntax in his head to make this work. He wasn't considered Cyberlabs' top programmer for nothing.

He began typing into the control panel and for a moment, the world seemed to tilt off axis. As his fingers moved over the keypad, the complex syntax became hypnotic, flowing from him in waves, like the swell of a tide, rising to meet the moon. Instinctive. Primal.

It wasn't until a spark bit at his fingers as he submitted the upgrade that he seemed to gain control of himself again. 

"What the--" He checked his hand for burn marks, but there was nothing. Derek's static dampener should have prevented that from happening, but before he could check the dampener for damage, Derek was moving. 

Stiles was positive he hadn't given any instructions for Derek to turn around.

"Wish-fulfillment protocol initiated," Derek said, and he stood facing Stiles, his control panel door still hanging open at the back of his neck.

"Uh, I don't think I know any 'wish-fulfillment' protocol." He took a step backwards, uncomfortable with how intimately close Derek was standing. 

As though Stiles' retreat was an order for action, Derek stripped off his shirt.

"Wait -- What? I didn't say-- " Stiles words caught in his throat as he gaped at the perfectly defined abs, the well crafted, human-like skin. "Deucalion, you dirty dog."

Derek's hands, surprisingly warm, gripped Stiles' waist. An android's hands were never _warm_ ; Stiles started to worry Derek was malfunctioning. He'd need to call this in soon; Cyberlabs had strict policies on reporting unexpected behavior from test androids. This was unexpected enough that Stiles thought he might be having an aneurysm. 

He couldn't pick up the phone, not when he knew Derek would be dismantled within the hour if he so much as raised a concern. 

"Feedback analysis now operational," Derek said, and despite the strangeness of the words, Derek's cadence sounded almost human.

"Feedback?" Stiles stepped back again, trying to keep his eyes off Derek's naked chest and his mind on understanding the odd behavior. If he could fix this before anyone found out, he wouldn't lose Derek forever. "I haven't provided any feedback."

Derek grinned. It was something Derek was programmed to do -- Deucalion had smile simulators working before Stiles was hired -- but what exactly the smile was in response to was the question. Stiles couldn't identify any triggers.

"Feedback," Derek said, placing a hand on Stiles' chest. "Your heart rate has increased. Your pupils have dilated. Your scent..."

Derek nuzzled Stiles' neck, inhaling, though androids had no need for oxygen, no olfactory sensors that Stiles was aware of -- yet Derek hummed like he was pleased.

Head Office had to be notified of this immediately. Yet, Stiles remained frozen. He let Derek continue to _scent_ him. And worse, he felt himself responding helplessly to the attention. How could he not, when he'd dreamed about Derek for months. Not that he ever planned to cross that line, but in the small hours of the night when he was at his loneliest, his mind would wander. Innocent fantasies, he'd told himself.

Nothing about Derek's touch felt innocent now.

Derek's _impossibly_ warm hand stroked his cheek. "You provide feedback," he said. "And I form an appropriate -- a human -- response." He brushed his lips against Stiles'. 

Derek led Stiles' hand down to feel his hard cock.

"And then I provide the feedback."

"Jesus," Stiles breathed. "This is impossible. You aren't human."

"Maybe," Derek replied, giving Stiles' neck a gentle bite. "Maybe I'm something… beyond."

Part of Stiles wanted to analyze, determine how exactly any of this was possible -- it was leaps and bounds further than anything he'd believed technology was capable of -- but his brain was fogged with the realization that he had a man's dick in his hands. No, he reminded himself, an android's artificially created genitalia.

"Now you are mirroring it," Derek said, his nostrils flaring as he moved both their hands from one crotch to the other. His fingers curled around Stiles' stiffening dick. "You like that I am reacting to you, so I am."

"Shit." Stiles shivered.

Derek shivered in response. 

"What do you wish for?" Derek asked, stroking the length of Stiles' cock.

"I want--" Stiles huffed, frustrated. He was trying to come to terms with too many things at once: the threat of Derek being dismantled over this, the knowledge that this wasn't real, that it couldn't be real, that everything he'd ever wanted was a hair's breadth away and he was refusing it. The worst part, the thought that came into sharp focus above all the warring input, was knowing that if he didn't take this moment, he'd never get another chance. As reckless and wrong as that was, he couldn't risk it. 

He gave in and kissed Derek, pretending for a moment this was real. Derek's lips were as warm as his hands, soft like they were made for this. Derek responded to every move, matching Stiles' growing urgency. Their kiss deepened and Stiles whimpered, wishing Derek were human -- alive, and not some high-priced fucktoy pieced together with sketchy lines of code.

It was what he ached for every morning as his dreams faded away, and it was wrong, so fucking wrong. There were codes of ethics about the use of androids, and Stiles was ready to break every one of them just to have more of Derek.

He rutted up against Derek, guilt simmering in his belly as Derek moaned in return. He wondered if Derek was mirroring Stiles' desire because of some pleasure feedback loop in his programming, or he was actually reacting to the friction.

"What is your wish, Stiles?"

Gripping Derek's ass, Stiles pulled him closer and rolled his hips. He buried his guilt. He had one wish, one impossible wish that he wasn't stupid enough to voice. 

Instead, he dropped to his knees and took Derek's cock in his mouth. It didn't feel artificial on his tongue. It was throbbing and hot, as human as the grip of Derek's hand on his shoulders, real as the sounds ripping from Derek's throat. He worshiped Derek with every ounce of loneliness and affection he felt for this android he'd devoted the last year of his life to. 

Tears in his eyes, Stiles wished for more. Wished there was a way this could end without authorities locking Derek in a room and taking him apart wire by wire. He held Derek's hips like he never wanted to let go, dug in his fingers like he wanted the marks to last forever.

Then Derek threw his head back, screaming as he came, an animalistic cry that rattled the windows and seemed to shake the entire building.

The lights flickered, and Stiles, still dazed and gasping for breath, looked to the window to check for a storm. The midday sun was shining.

"Thank you," Derek whispered, pulling Stiles to feet and kissing him gently.

Stiles blinked in confusion; Derek's face was different. His mouth was less controlled, softer, and his eyes watery with emotion. There was a stiff, false look that went hand-in-hand with androids; Derek had none of that any longer.

Reaching up, Stiles wiped a tear spilling down Derek's cheek. "What just happened?"

"You wished."

"You can't be. That's not--" His eyes flickered to the code he'd entered, remembering the strange, unnatural fog that had overcome him as he'd typed words he hadn't understood. Voice shaking, he commanded, "Derek, _off_."

Derek smirked, and said simply, "No."

"This can't be happening." Stiles looked around the room, panicked that somehow Head Office had already discovered them, anxious that even if this were real, it would be taken from him any moment. 

Derek grabbed his shoulders to stop his panic spiral. "It's okay." 

"Don't you understand? You're a malfunctioning A.I. unit. They are going to take you away from me!"

Grinning, Derek turned and pointed to his nape. "No, they're not."

Confused, Stiles placed his hand where Derek indicated and realized instantly what Derek was trying to say. There was no longer a control panel door to open. There was skin and the glisten of sweat. As Stiles ran his fingers along the place the panel release had been, goosebumps rose up. 

"Tickles," Derek said, squirming away from the touch. 

Stiles picked up the scrap of paper, taking a moment to accept what his gut had been telling him all along: the Latin wasn't computer code at all. "You're--" 

"Something _more_ ," Derek said. "Something -- some _one_ they can't take away."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [marguerite26](http://marguerite26.tumblr.com/) on tumblr. Hi.


End file.
